Thomas Burke Rockwell III sat at his desk and watched the latitude and longitude change as he ran the cursor across the satellite picture of the area. He looked at the next coordinates for a corner of the property he was interested in. It was a 1244-acre parcel of land; it was planted in pine trees now. He wanted to determine how much pine was harvestable right now.
He had only been using the satellite pictures for a few weeks and was just becoming proficient with it. It appeared that it would make his job much easier. Nancy, his wife had never understood exactly what he did but she knew he made good money. He wondered if she had gotten home from her trip to town this morning. She had said that she might stay in town for lunch with some friends.
He rolled the track ball on his mouse and ran the cursor up the highway to his neighborhood. He followed the road off the highway and found his house. He looked at the time the picture was taken and saw it was only 5 minutes old. He saw his wife's white SUV in front of the garage. There was another vehicle there too. He cranked up the magnification and recognized their friend Alan's Pick-up truck
Why was it there at 12:45 in the afternoon on a Thursday? He picked up the phone and rang his own house number. No answer. He tried Nancy's cell phone. She answered. She sounded out of breath. "Hi, how are ya doing. Your did shopping go, OK?"
"OH! Hi dear, we are still at it. We'll be home in a while."
"Hey, drive carefully. I feel you are safer in that big Escalade of yours, it's like a tank."
"I feel safer too. See ya later."
Tom sat there with a puzzled look on his face. He checked the time again on the screen for the date time group showing when the picture was taken. He picked a picture for the present time. His house was still in sight. The picture was from more of an angle but the two vehicles were both in sight.
He switched to an older picture taken at 12:00. Both vehicles were there but the pick-up was partly in the street so it must have just been arriving. The picture was from lower on the other side. He zoomed in and copied the license plate numbers off both trucks. He knew that was the last usable picture until tomorrow because the satellite he was using was in polar orbit and not geosyncronous orbit. The satellite he was using passed overhead roughly every 23 hours and 56 minutes. It was over his position close to noon and that was when he got the best resolution with the least distortion.
He looked off into space for a moment then he grabbed a Heartland America catalog from the wastebasket where he had thrown it. He searched trough it rapidly until he found what he was looking for. The Item was no. E3-87256, a Motorola home monitoring system. It consisted of two motion activated IR wireless cameras that capture both audio and video and relay that it to a receiver that connects to your PC (where it could be recorded.) or Internet equipped cell phone. This feature made it possible to monitor your house from anywhere in the world. The programmable cameras could be set to 'always on' for continual viewing or motion activated. It had a 250' range from the cameras to the PC. He picked up the phone and ordered one sent to his office by priority shipping. Not bad for $129.99 plus shipping. It would be there in two days.
He opened a cupboard and found his little RCA voice activated digital recorder he used to record meetings and save them for later review. He dropped it in his brief case and returned to work. Work wasn't easy that day. He checked his house several more times. It was shortly before one o'clock when the truck disappeared from his drive. He was able to go back up to a year and review pictures. The resolution was not as good but it was good enough to see cars in his driveway.
He went back to the previous Thursday and saw the truck there then too. It was never there except on Thursdays. He checked back for several months on Thursdays and the truck was there. Of ten Thursdays it was there on eight of them. He checked back on his daily calendar and one day it was missing was when he had been home after having minor surgery for the removal of three skin cancers. The other was when they were away on vacation.
He thought about Nancy, could she be having an affair? He knew she was fond of his friend Alan Stroudt. They both were, but would she cheat on him? There had been times in the past that he had wondered about her. She had always been somewhat of a flirt and a tease with the guys.
She had always enjoyed touching other men. When they were first married it had made him very jealous. He had asked her why she did it and told her it might give the man the wrong idea. She had laughed and said, "If I want to give a guy a signal I will just tell him what I want. I am just a touchy feely person. I like touching people. I don't mean anything by it. " "You mean that when you do it to me you don't mean it, that it's not a sign of your love and affection?"
"Of course it is. What I do to you is different."
"Not that I can see. Anyway it makes me uncomfortable. I don't see any reason a married woman should flirt with another man anyway."
He thought back and he had noticed she had stopped touching other men. At least when he was around anyway. He recalled that since Alan had gotten his divorce from Alice, he had stayed pretty far from Nancy at parties and other occasions.
What possible innocent reason would he have for being at his house every Thursday at noon? What was significant about Thursday with Nancy or himself?
He could think of nothing except that Thursday was payday at his office. He always paid everyone at noon on Thursday. He never went home at noon on Thursday because by the time everyone got their checks it was usually 1:15 or so. He had the checks at his desk and his employees stopped by and had a word with him and picked up their checks. He turned to his computer and went to WORD and typed in a memo that payday next week would be on Friday and would be on Friday until further notice. He printed it out in a large red font and posted it on the bulletin board.
Damn! He thought, have I already convicted Nancy without hearing her side of the story? No. Not really, I wouldn't say anything to her until I had better evidence than I had now. Well! At lease it gave me time to set things up for next Thursday. The voice recorder would go to work tonight. I need to think about this a bit more carefully. Nancy worked part time at the local bank. Alan was a Vice- President there too. She worked as a loan officer on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Once in a while she worked late, but not often, maybe every other month. He had never thought much about it. She always called him early to tell him so he would be home for the kids. At fourteen and sixteen they could really fend for themselves but it seemed the right thing to do. He had never checked on her. She was always home by eight thirty or nine.
He thought about their sex life, it was pretty good he thought, they had sex about twice a week. Not like when they were first married but about average he thought. It was always good and often great. When she worked late she usually didn't want to fool around. He tried to remember. She had begged off last Thursday too. More to wonder about, she was going to have a lot of questions to answer pretty soon.
What would he do if she were cheating on him? He had never thought about it. He guessed it would depend on several things. He knew it would be hell living without her. Would he ever be able to trust her again? Cheating was the same as stealing she always said. She said you could never trust a thief or a cheat. Maybe it would be smart to give her reason to believe he was suspicious of her. Maybe she would stop if she was cheating. God, this was enough to drive you crazy.
What about the kids? Why isn't she thinking about the kids? Why isn't she thinking about him? Does she love Alan? Is she about to leave him anyway? He made up his mind he would give her a subtle hint, get straight or get out! Yeah! Real smooth. He had to think about it. Do it now or be sure of what she is doing first?
He told his people he didn't feel too good and that he was going home. He drove home with his mind in high gear. He pulled in the drive and sat in the car to gather his thoughts before he went in. She was in the kitchen, She looked at him with real concern in her eyes, "I thought I heard you pull in. What took you so long to come inside? She hurried to him and looked up at him. "Are you alright, are you sick or something?"
"Yeah! I don't feel too good."
"What's wrong Honey, tell me about it." She was dragging him to his favorite chair. "Do you want me to fix you a drink?"
"Yeah, a drink would be nice." He walked in the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table. They took most of their family meals there. They had their monthly family conference there. She set a drink in front of Tom. "Now tell me about it Dear."
"Why don't you tell me about it Nancy? Something is wrong between us and I don't know what it is, but I am scared."
"I don't know what you are talking about. Nothing is wrong, I love you and you love me. Right?"
"I don't know. Do you remember the old game of Monopoly?"
"Of course I do. Why?"
